


The Appearance of Stability

by TheAudity



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon typical traumatic upbringings, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Episode: s04e05 Escape From the Happy Place, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Missing Scene, Spectacular Summer of Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25338781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAudity/pseuds/TheAudity
Summary: "Well that, Eliot thought as his heart attempted to evacuate his rib cage, had been an unmitigated disaster."In which Eliot Waugh is trapped in his head, Charlton might actually be a personified meerkat, and Indiana is the literal worst. Written for the Tumblr Event "Eliot Waugh's Spectacular Summer of Shame". Prompt: "Dad's heart attack". ft. bonus "Accidentally coming out to pastor".
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Eliot Waugh's Spectacular Summer of Shame





	The Appearance of Stability

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, thank you so much to the incredible Hoko_Onchi for beta reading this work. If you're not following Hoko already, what are you doing with your lives? Go read Pictures of You, NOW.
> 
> Secondly, thank you to the spectacular Rubick for co-moderating this event with me, and for always being such a great motivational force when I start to doubt my writing. Also, if you're not following her, go read her Magicians/HP crossover, it's fantastic!
> 
> A few minor content warnings before we begin; there are a few instances of homophobic language throughout this story. If you would like to know where exactly these are in the story, please see the end notes. Additionally, this work does contain Eliot's father appearing in memory form. If you would like specific details as to what to expect from that scene, please see the end notes.
> 
> Thank you for choosing to read this story, and I hope you enjoy!

\---x---

Well that, Eliot thought as his heart attempted to evacuate his rib cage, had been an unmitigated disaster.

Time and space had a strange way of interacting inside his Happy Place. There was absolutely no telling how much time he had wasted. His schedule was folding in on itself in a sad sorry loop, more befitting a high school has-been than a deposed monarch. But the waste had occurred nonetheless, with Eliot reliving the best days of the most idyllic summer of his life, before reality crashed into him, dressed in gold and black brocade. A man he had presumed half-imaginary informed him that nothing around him was real and he was being paraded around the cosmos without his consent by a Monster that should have, by all accounts, been dead. His only chance at getting out, it seemed, was to relive all of his worst memories in hopes of _possibly_ finding a doorway, armed with nothing more than copies of his friends at their most powerful moments to serve as human shields because apparently there were other monsters outside the cottage who would kill him in a heartbeat. And _when had this become his life_?

The last round of memories hadn't even been particularly awful, in hindsight. True, his catalog of high school memories was objectively terrible, between being dragged to every football game by his older brothers, desperate to cling on to their 'glory days', and avoiding eye contact with everyone in the locker room lest an impromptu game of 'beat up the faggot' was in order. But after everything magic had thrown at him over the last few years, those memories barely registered on his trauma scale. That didn't make reliving them any less taxing, and the loss of liminal space from memory to memory only made the ordeal more exhausting. Was it convenient to be able to bolt out the door of the old science classroom where he used to hide during lunch, and immediately enter the rundown auditorium where the most low-budget production of Les Miserables in the history of theater had been held? Well, yes, especially when one was running from monsters intent on rending flesh from bone. It meant time was just as impossible to make sense of now as it had been during the looping days before. Eliot had made the mistake of mentioning this to Charlton, his possibly real, definitely reluctant spirit guide, who had helpfully responded "Oh, Well, I suppose that doesn't matter much, since we don't know how fast time is moving outside of here. I never quite figured that out.". After that conversation, he made a calculated decision to not ask Charlton for advice again, unless there was literally no other option.

Now, he leaned against the solid wood door, breathing heavily, grateful to be back in the Cottage. It was a prison, sure, but it was a prison with whisky and parties whenever he wanted. Once his chest felt less like it contained a jackhammer and his lungs felt less like they were punishing him for his smoking habit, Eliot dared to assess who they had lost. Lost might not be the right word; were you really losing someone if they were just a memory, if they had never been real? Regardless, they felt real, and Eliot was in no position to consider the philosophy of existence without a stiff drink that may or may not actually exist. Who knew that being trapped inside your own mind would mean so much...thinking?

Kady, fists as fierce as they were the day their problems were as small as robbing a bank and avoiding murder-by-battle-magician, was making her way upstairs, calling back to them to "try not to need me for five god damn minutes, you're all exhausting". King Idri, in all his regalia, sword at hand and prepared to strike down any foe, had stopped by the Foosball table near the window seat. Why was that table even here? Eliot hated Foosball; it felt too much like the gauche sports bars his family had favored growing up. No sooner than he thought the thought, the table vanished. The King, his once-would be killer, once-fiance, turned to him incredulously. Eliot shrugged, and continued his pan. Quentin, drawn too taught and brimming with the unique brand of frustration that had driven him through his first semester, hadn't moved from the leather armchair by the bookshelves since they left. Every line of his body; the hunch of his shoulder, the tuck of one foot on the seat, his knee against his chest, the clench of his jaw, all spoke of frustration at being left behind _again_ , but was simultaneously a preparation to propel forward, to offer his support at a moments notice. It figured that, even in memory, Q would manage to put everyone else first. And Charlton, ever out of place, lips pursed in eternal bemusement, had made his way past the bar and to the chalkboard, where he crossed out their latest failure- _'forgetting lines during play.'_

He sighed, head tipping back until it hit the door. They had lost Alice this time. Fitting that he had chosen an Alice who had already sacrificed everything to protect him yet again, the memory of a girl in pink paisley who cast the most powerful battle magic known to anyone, and burned out on it to save Fillory, to save all of magic. A sick part of him still laughed at that. The girl who had become a monster to keep magic free became a monster who wanted to end magic forever.

At least he hadn't had to watch her die this time.

Eliot exhaled and made his way past the staircase, past the worn leather armchairs, past a version of Quentin still untouched by all the shit that was coming for them. Quentin watched as he passed, eyes brimming with something that everyone else seemed to take as constant worry, but he read as gentle concern. It was disarming, to say the least. This Q was only a memory, no different than the others, but he felt somehow more real. The effect of living in a shack together for fifty years, of having the time to learn Quentin's micro expressions better than his own, no doubt.

_It wasn't a shack. It was your home, and was the best life you've ever known-._

He shook his head, as though he could dispel the treacherous thought from his mind. There was no point in dwelling on what was; they could only move forward. Quentin, that damned earnestness still in place, nodded gently and departed, giving Eliot space he hadn’t even realized he needed. 

Watching Quentin walk away, Eliot shifted his thoughts to all the versions of his friends- allies? acquaintances? Treacherous, untrustworthy people who screwed him over on multiple occasions who he tried to understand regardless because people were complicated? People he'd watched die already. Learning he could summon any version of anyone he'd known to his mind palace had been, at least initially, fun. The novelty wore off pretty fast once he'd been faced with the echo of his first Margo, dressed in her Welter's best and spitting venom and fury, torn apart limb by limb. From then on, Eliot was forced to think of his companions less as his friends, and more as the most optimal versions of themselves he could imagine, the ones most suited to fight, knowing they would die. The abundance of options was distressing, to say the very least; Penny, full of fight just before being stabbed by a cursed dagger, and again as he raged against the inevitability of his own death. Julia, wielding the Leo blade, her eyes filled with a despair he could never understand but pain palpable nonetheless, Fen, stumbling forward with missing toes, willing to make any sacrifice to warn them of the worst yet to come. Each time Eliot remembered another version of them to use, he was hit by how their strongest selves always seemed to exist in a time and space right before they got their asses handed to them by the universe. Hadn’t they already done enough? Just how many times had Eliot watched everyone around him almost die, actually die, or barely get by in the wake of their grief? How much more blood would the universe demand of them? When would enough be _enough_ ? His third Margo had laughed, the soft and gentle thing reserved only for him when he confided this thought to her. _'You always were a soft bitch, you soft bitch'_ , she'd replied, her freshly crushed eye still dripping from her fingertips. 

"We need to keep moving," Charlton said, pulling Eliot from his reverie. He had yet to pull his blue eyes, always so serious, from the chalkboard. Eliot stared at him, caught between incredulity and resting bitch face. What exactly did he _think_ they were doing, planning a thrice damned tea party?

"Spectacular observation Charlton, I never would have thought of that on my own." He scoffed. Of all the Jiminy Crickets Eliot could get stuck with, of course he had to wind up with the frustratingly dull one. It was a losing battle to not roll his eyes at everything the boring blond said. Fortunately, the feeling seemed at least somewhat mutual. As annoying as Eliot found Charlton's stating of the obvious, Charlton undoubtedly viewed Eliot as some sort of child who needed to have things stated so plainly to. Which, rude.

He bristled in response nonetheless. "I'm just- I'm just thinking out loud, why are you such a fuck?"

Eliot couldn't help but smirk. While Charlton may have been alive far longer than he had, possibly even with a life that never happened, sometimes he seemed so much like Todd. Remarkably out of place and so desperate to fit into a mold that would never suit him. It was cute, like watching a puppy trying to climb stairs, completely unaware that their legs were too small to make the clearing. "Aw, that time you almost got it right."

His voice dripped with every ounce of condescension he could muster. Admittedly, he was running on fumes, so it wasn't much, but he needed it. Looking down on others may have been one of the uglier parts of his personality, but it was also the one that made him feel the most normal. His gaze slipped past the brocade-clad embodiment of desperation to feel important, and over the assortment of decanters, books, and candles that lined the walls of the re-imagining of his first real home. Maybe he could pretend it was real for just a second-

"Right, I don't know anything so you can just ignore me." -Or, Charlton could open his stupid boring mouth again. "Eliot, we'll only be able to outrun the other monsters for so long. If you want to get out of here, we need to get more serious."

The worst part of it was, he was right. Eliot paused nonetheless. There were only so many moments in the highlight reel of bad haircuts and bullying, and there was no telling what his body was doing while they were trapped. Were his friends, his real friends, safe? Did they even know who they were anymore? He swallowed. Charlton was right, and they needed to move on to heavier matters. "Alright, how does unintentionally coming out to my pastor sound?"

  
  


\---x---

  
  


Accidentally coming out to his pastor, as it turned out, had really sucked. But not in the way meeting with the High Council sucked; it was more akin to watching a terrible movie and still laughing at all the most inappropriate parts. It was nice to realize that despite years of drinking and assorted party drugs, his mind was still able to recall all the little details. The exterior of the little white church, paint cracked and peeling thanks to an uncharacteristic drought, the smell of old hay and hot asphalt as his younger self stormed across the parking lot. He had felt so mature at seventeen, so worldly simply for wanting more than what Whiteland had to offer. Now, all he could see was a boy who thought 'dressing up' was coordinating his boots with his shirt and who still hid his conditioner in the back of the bathroom cabinet, bolting from a conversation with a middle aged man with a receding hairline who dared to call him out on _'not having a plan for his future_ '. Only Eliot _had_ a plan; he was going to go to New York, become an actor, shack up with a fabulously wealthy producer and spend the rest of his life honing the fine art of being anyone but himself. The last thing he had needed was one more teacher, guidance counselor, or 'well-meaning' authority figure who had ignored all of his _actual_ problems pulling him aside after class or church or whatever thrice-damned social gathering he had been dragged to, to instill him with the 'importance of honest work' and other words of warning.

Still, there had been a moment, a _glorious_ moment, where Eliot had gotten to relive the look of sheer horror on Pastor Johnson's face when his younger self had spun back to yell "Why don't you go suck a dick Craig- it's done wonders for me." The man instantly turned red faced, and he’d sputtered as his next words were completely lost. Eliot’s younger self had looked so satisfied. Even as a bystander unable to affect a thing, Eliot couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Then the weight of those words hit his younger self, and his memory panicked. He tried to play it off as a joke, he laughed, and when that didn't work he practically groveled, holding back tears and begging the other man not to repeat what he'd said to his family. At least nowadays, when Eliot was at anyone's mercy, it was because they were opposing monarchs or magical super beings who could kill him with a wave of their hand, but this had just been... this had been a breathtaking low.

Eliot had stood in that parking lot longer than he cared to admit, watching a younger, more fragile version of himself bargain with a man who, in the grand scheme of things, really didn't matter. Hell, Pastor Johnson hadn't even mattered in the short term, Eliot had left town for good less than a week later. But it had still been hard to turn away from the boy in the parking lot, desperate and pretending as though his cuffed jeans were an intentional style choice, and not the result of an unexpected growth spurt.

But no door appeared. So instead, he imagined telling his past self that life would become so much bigger than all this, and someday he wouldn't even recognize himself. It was a pointless fantasy, but it had felt nice enough. Of course that was all ruined when the Monsters finally showed up. Their heavy cloaks and masked faces were somehow more horrifying under the midday sun than they had been in any of the flickering, dim lit rooms of before. Less The VVitch, and more Midsommar, or something like that. He didn't actually know, it was just what the memory of Kady had said before charging forward, taking two of the creatures out with deadly efficiency before her neck was snapped. Idri was, undoubtedly, gone as well, having kissed him before stepping into battle himself, leaving himself and Charlton to run like the cowards they were.

Which led them, once again, back to square one. Back to this fucking cottage and its eery emptiness and its never-ending supply of scotch that almost made him feel drunk if he thought _really_ hard about it, which ruined the point of drinking but didn't stop him from pouring another glass with shaking hands regardless. At least Charlton had the good sense to vanish from his sight, for once.

Eliot stared at the window, his drink trembling in hand but otherwise untouched. What even was the point of any of it? His life was a veritable shit show; he didn't exactly have a shortage of worst memories to search through. Hell, the chalkboard his fellow prisoner was so enamored with barely contained the top ten percent. They could easily search for forever, and still be no closer to his _'darkest memory, the one so terrible you refuse to let yourself think of it'_. What a load of horse shit. Why shouldn't he just enjoy his prison, stare out an imaginary window looking at an imaginary lawn, not drinking an imaginary drink with his imaginary friends?

And thinking of imaginary friends, the most familiar of the denizens of his mind materialized beside him. Or, more likely, he walked over like a normal figment and Eliot was too caught up in his thoughts to notice.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Quentin asked, and _God_ was it unfair how earnest his eyes always were, honey brown and wide and puppy-like. Eliot's chest clenched at the fear that this might be the closest he would ever get to Q again. Still, he forced a smile. The real Quentin would have seen through it in a heartbeat. Maybe this one did too.

"I'm pretty sure we're out of Pennys." he exhaled. Not-Quentin shifted, leaning in closer to him and if Eliot focused hard enough, he could almost make out the smell of his terrible two-in-one coconut scented drugstore shampoo.

"That's too bad, I kind of miss messing with him."

"Oh?" Eliot quirked an eyebrow. It made sense that Memory Quentin was more multi-dimensional than the other constructs, given the additional lifetime of memories he had to create his personality from, but his bouts of subtle dickishness always managed to catch him off guard.

The Quentin who was so, so painfully close to being real, grinned. Well, Eliot recognized it as a grin. To anyone else it just looked like he was actively not frowning. "Yeah, fun fact I'm not actually that into Taylor Swift? I mostly started thinking of it to annoy him."

If anyone could find a way to make Eliot laugh while being reminded that his body was under occupation by an angry God-child, of course it would be Quentin Coldwater. It wasn't a proper laugh, more of a quick exhale, but it was the most he had managed to feel since learning that everything around him, from the familiar green wallpaper to his best friend, wasn't real.

Perhaps that was why he kept this Quentin around, of all the ones he could summon. Sure, the Quentin who had fought Penny tooth and nail to keep his place at Brakebills was brave, but he was far from the bravest Q Eliot had seen. There was the version of the boy before him who had faced The Beast, more than _once_ , who had watched Alice burn away to save them. There was the one who stared down Christopher Plover, the real monster in their story, threatening to feed him _piece by piece_ to Martin Chatwin if he didn't tell them what they needed to know, the one who had killed a God, for fuck’s sake, for the sake of Fillory.

There was the boy who looked at him, fearless and sincere, eyes flickering gold in the candlelight as they say atop a threadbare quilt, who kissed him gently, and expected nothing in return for his beating heart. There was the boy who dragged him out of their cabin on late summer nights, to dance among the fireflies, unafraid of judgement for what a terrible dancer he was, yet who always protested against Eliot's claims that he was surprisingly light on his feet. There was the man who sang their son to sleep, off key and painfully bad and beautifully carefree, the man who walked the familiar road to the market with him, on the day they assumed was Tuesday, and teased him endlessly when Eliot finally admitted that the cane Quentin had purchase him _was_ making things easier on his aching knees.

There was the man who looked right past him, steeling himself away to guard a monster forever after-

It didn't matter. Quentin had made his choices, and Eliot had made his in kind. They were here, and dwelling on what could have been was pointless. What mattered was that this Quentin was plenty brave. Or maybe Eliot had latched onto this particular memory because he was a version of Quentin who hadn't been quite so fucked over by everything yet. Because maybe he could keep him safe this time. Because maybe it was nice to have someone around who should have been just as in over their head as he was. Because he was the High King of overthinking things.

The version of his friend who still had some innocence left turned back to him. His hair had fallen over his eyes, and Eliot was too weak a man to not take the invitation to brush it back behind his ear. Quentin may have spent years mastering the fine art of hiding in plain sight, but he deserved to be seen. As he carded his fingers through the soft sable strands, Quentin tucked into his side. They stood, comfortable in each other's presence for a moment. Moments did have a habit of never lasting long for them.

The Quentin who wasn't Quentin turned to look up at him, all sincerity and openness and overwhelming _'please be honest with me, I promise I won't break_ ', and Eliot's breath hitched. "How come you don't bring me out with you?"

His heart hurt. All Eliot wanted to do was wrap this boy up, hold him tight, and keep him safe in here forever. How was he supposed to look him in the eye and say ' _because I'm tired of watching everyone die for me, but I can work through it. I couldn't survive losing you?_ ' Why did he need to summon versions of his friends to suffer over and over again, just for his sake. Why couldn't he just watch past versions of himself die? Sure, there weren't any worth holding onto for a fight, but it could be cathartic to watch the worst versions of himself bite it ad nauseum. He considered telling Q as much, but even a fake Quentin would take that as an opportunity to try and instill him with the sense of self-love he desperately lacked. Instead, Eliot chortled, considered downing his scotch, considered that there wasn't a point. He raised the glass anyway,;it was nice to have something to gesture with. "Itching for a fight already? You always did have more courage than sense."

"That's not a real answer." Not-Quentin stared up at him, but there was no heat to it. Somehow, everything within the Cottage seemed to have a softer edge to it. The corners of his vision were constantly slightly fuzzy, the light rendered everything a bit too amber. Everyone he encountered, save Charlton, held no real bite. Undoubtedly, it was a measure to keep hosts complacent, discourage anyone from looking for a way out. Undoubtedly, without the Monster's former host practically riding his ass, (and wasn't _that_ an awful thought?) he would have gladly slipped into it.

"No, I suppose it isn't,” he eventually managed,though he suspected it wouldn't matter whether he gave Q a real answer or not. He was just a manifestation of Eliot's own mind, his consciousness built entirely on Eliot's knowledge and experiences. He almost stopped to wonder how much of his experience was actually separate from Eliot's, before cutting the thought off. That was a rabbit hole he really wasn't prepared for.

"Hey-" It was clear from the look in Quentin's eyes that his hadn't left Eliot's in some time, though they did finally flutter closed. He leaned in, and his lips were as soft and welcoming against Eliot's own as he remembered from a lifetime never lived ago. He sighed into the kiss before he could think to do otherwise, and gripped his frankly abysmal blue flannel shirt, deepening the movement. It felt like coming home, like waking up from a terrible dream in the arms of someone he loved more than he could ever admit, in a too-small bed in a room with a slightly leaky roof, that if luck permitted he would never have to leave, and-

And he pulled back, gripping Quentin's shoulders to keep him from following. "Q, we- we need to stop."

For someone who didn't actually exist, Q was remarkably good at cutting right to the core of him with a single pained look. Or perhaps it was because he wasn't real that the gaze was so effective. Who would know how to hurt him better than his own mind? "Why?"

He balked. "Because...because you're not real."

The real Quentin would bite back, Eliot thought. The real Q would say something biting and sarcastic, likely about philosophy and the concept of reality as a series of synapses that made zero sense, that Eliot would pretend to listen to, but would be too distracted by his cupid's bow to process a word he said. This Quentin somehow softened further, leaning closer and pressing his forehead to Eliot's chest. "Does that really matter?"

He sighed. "Yes? I mean, I think it does." The words felt hollow, their echo amplified by his fingers carding their way back into Not-Quentin's not hair. "It's just- Look, Q, this isn't really you, and you wouldn't want-"

Quentin pulled back, blinking up at him. "Right, because you've always been the leading expert on what I want." Eliot winced. The words were a knife in his gut, and it was hard to determine which aspect of the blade cut deeper; the reminder of all the times he had disregarded Quentin's decisions (for his own good, he reminded himself. Shooting the monster at Blackspire might have locked him in this situation, but the alternative was unacceptable. If Quentin refused to see that, then it was his responsibility to see it for him), or the absence of heat in the echo’s voice.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He managed to keep his voice level, though only just. The memory before him reached up and cupped his cheek, and Eliot was only a little ashamed of the keen that escaped his throat as he leaned into the touch. All too soon, Quentin stepped away.

"Figure it out, I'm in your head. Everything I know, you do too." He turned back towards the main common space of the cottage, towards the space by the fireplace where their lack of progress was being tracked. He shrugged. "I'll be by the board whenever you're ready to begin again."

And Eliot was alone again. He snorted softly, an undignified sound a younger him would have never admitted to. It was incredible what almost dying a dozen times or so did to one's sense of humility. Of course he was alone again, he had been alone this whole time. Everything anyone around him said or did was just a manifestation of his own wants and needs. That was the only reason Quentin would want to be anywhere near him, offer him any sort of support, after what he had done, why he had left to keep them back on track with the quest. That was the only reason he hadn't completely disregarded Charlton as another figment of his imagination; he could never imagine someone with so terrible a name. Eliot sighed, and downed his scotch in one swallow. It felt like nothing. He wondered, not for the first time, if that absence of feeling would be preferable overall.

  
  


\---x---

  
  


Some small, hopeful part of him that life hadn't killed yet stared at the chalkboard, half expecting the location of his door out of here to jump out at him. That part was definitely on its last legs.

Eliot slumped back on the couch. Sure, this wasn't the _most_ impossible puzzle he'd ever tackled, but it was definitely in the running. In retrospect, he realized he never actually solved the worst one. They must have deciphered the mosaic eventually, since Margo had turned up with the key, but he had no idea how such a vague and ominous puzzle even could have been answered. Leave it to Q, king of not knowing when the hell to quit, to figure it out on his own. He'd never worked up the courage to ask Quentin what the solution had been, never worked up the courage in that life to admit that, by the end, it didn't matter much to him. But of course, Quentin believed, and he had solved it, and of course, he wasn't here now.

"Alright, I think we should check out the diving board incident, public humiliation is always promising." He posited. 

Charlton sputtered, spinning away from the board in such a rush he almost knocked it over."Public humiliation, are you serious? We're looking for your deepest, most repressed memory, I suspect it's going to be a bit worse than a board of diving!" He was red faced and frustrated, and Eliot reveled in it. In truth, he didn't have anything against the blond. Sure, he was uptight, and too serious by half, and approached everything with such a palpable sense of dread, but he was the only person in Eliot's head who gave him any sort of push back. Frankly, it was nice to have at least one person around him act like, well, a person. If pushing his oh-so-obvious buttons kept Eliot sane, who could really stop him?

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Excuse you, public humiliation is always a solid foundation, especially when you have a reputation to maintain, not that you would know. Margo, are you really going to let him talk to me like this?"

As he turned to his left, his dearest Bambi materialized, from the day she swore to defeat him and gain Genji's mentorship, back when her battle armor was a perfectly tailored blouse and blazer. She gave Charlton a dismissive wave, and turned towards him. "I still don't get why you're listening to him. He's a little bitch."

Eliot nodded, fighting back the smile that threatened to overtake his face. Messing with Charlton was only fun if he pretended he was being serious, after all. "Thank you Bambi. Quentin?"

"Have you noticed you're avoiding every memory that has anything to do with your family?”

Eliot inhaled sharply. He shouldn't have been able to, as Quentin had just sucked all air from the room, but that was far from the most pressing subject at hand. He hesitated, struggling to keep his cool affectation for entirely new reasons.

"They're not my family Q, they're just the people who brought me into this world and made me hate every second of it."

Charlton perked up, looking less like a person and more like a brocade clad meerkat. "Well that sounds promising, why haven't we looked there yet?"

"Because I'm over it, alright? I literally fed my father to cannibals for crying out loud. Trust me, that shit's resolved." Eliot snapped, rescinding his tolerance for the man. Fuck Charlton, fuck his family, and just for good measure, fuck Quentin too. Charlton rolled his eyes. Or, he did the Fillorian equivalent of an eye roll, which was more of a side-glance and a shoulder slump, but the point still stood. "That doesn't sound very resolved"

"Well I didn't ask you, did I?" he intoned.

"You're the one who wants to get out of here. Why aren't you taking this seriously?" Charlton shouted back. The game of stirring him up was long dead, and Eliot just wanted this conversation to be _over_. He just needed to find the right remark, the right escape, the right turn of phrase that would cut Charlton to the core of who he was and make him recoil, give up, treat this conversation like it had never happened-

"El..." The voice to his right cut his train of thought. Quentin shifted awkwardly in his armchair of choice. Eliot tried to hold onto his anger, to something tangible, but, he couldn't.

When it came down to it, they were right. There was no way he could find the worst, most deeply repressed memory, without returning to the Hell he had been forced to call home for seventeen years. It was just- he was already impotent enough. He was a combination of his failure to give a shit at Brakebills, his failure to be a decent King, his failure to be a father when Fen needed him by her side and his failure to _shoot a fucking gun right_ , as though he hadn't been handling firearms since he was eight, and his failure to realize he was living the _same goddamn day_ on a loop until _Jiminy Charlton_ showed up. He was a goddamn magician, but he couldn't _do_ anything. He could barely stand to look at the man he was now. How the hell was he supposed to look at the people who made him into this?

Margo, always the boldest among them, was the first to breach the silence. She scoffed. "If nothing else, it'll be a great chance to look those fuckers in the eye and say 'I survived, bitches'. So stop being a scared little shit and ovary up."

"I'm not scared." Eliot countered. And he wasn't. Scared wasn't anywhere near strong enough a word.

"Fuckers?" Charlton pondered. It may have been a question directed at him. Ten minutes ago, he might have given a shit. He turned to Margo, continuing to ignore the only other real person here.

"I don't want you to see what's there, even if it's not really you." He managed, barely a whisper. Margo rolled her eyes, but she also leaned over to rub her hand along his arm. "We know, but El, sweetie, you don't have much of a better option do you?"

And wasn't that the crux of the issue? Still, Bambi wasn't one to be trifled with, even when she wasn't truly herself. Of course she would manifest here as a consciousness he would actually listen to.

Quentin shifted again, finally scooting closer. Eliot considered reaching towards him, pulling him back against his side, staying here until he could properly remember Q's scent. "And I'm coming this time." It wasn't a question, nor a request for invitation. Quentin placed his hand over Eliot's, and he felt a chill. Whether it was from the contact, or the fear at losing him, he couldn't say. But Eliot had fought against that expression before and he had lost.

He swallowed thickly, and nodded. "...Alright."

  
  
  


\---x---

  
  


The front door of the cottage opened to vast skies, dotted with the barest scattering of clouds, and a golden field he had thought endless as a boy, where the government paid his family not to grow corn. Once upon a time, he had actually romanticized this place, his arms outstretched as he wandered through the fields, in the years before subsidies and agricultural adjustments. He could lose himself so easily in the endless golden sea, the way the wind would charge just before a good storm, the feeling of sun on his skin. But childhood could only last so long. The fields weren't a golden sea; they were just dead grass. The air was as stagnant as the ones he was forced to call his family, and the freedom of running under the sun was just a reminder that this place would be both his cradle and his grave, and he would never be anyone as long as he remained.

And still, the part of him that wanted this place to mean something wouldn't fucking _die_.

The smell of the farm hit him all at once. It was a nauseating combination of heat and ammonia, of old hay and shit. The combination struck him to his very core, stirring his fight or flight response in ways not even an occupying army had been able to. To his left, Margo scoffed at the little white farmhouse before them. Time and neglect had ensured most of the paint had vanished from its wooden facade, and the rust on the tin roof only served to make the picture sadder. The window shades were slightly crooked on the second floor, and the flower boxes, once a point of pride for his mother, were long since dead. Back during a time when his mother had the energy to make an effort, she had mounted a red swing on the front porch. That bench had been the source of some of the few good memories he had of this place. He had once spent whole afternoons in that seat, giddy and squealing while his brothers pushed the swing back and forth. Once he grew old enough that they realized he wasn't quite right, well, they still pushed him around. The bench now hung on rusted chains, its wooden surfaces bored far beyond repair by varying invasive beetles, and the beam that served as its primary support not far behind. Still, it hung, and the appearance of stability was all that mattered to the people of Whiteland.

To his right, Quentin gripped his hand tighter.

Eliot took a breath, and the group passed by the old house, towards the even older barn out back. It was an unyielding thing, held upright by a few struggling nails and the power of spite. It was a monument to OSHA violations and improper grain and fertilizer storage, and when he was seven he almost got tetanus from a scratch against the main gate, but it was also the one place he knew he could hide. That was where he found himself, ten years in the past and tucked between the drooping wall and his brother's tractor. The boy he had been was curled in on himself, biting his lip to the point of bleeding to avoid crying out loud. God, he had been a mess that day, so young and so incapable of keeping his head after a few drinks. The boy behind the tractor wheel was succeeding at keeping quiet, but he was still a red faced, snot covered mess. Though maybe that was to be expected after kissing your best friend.

It had been maybe an hour earlier, and it had been the first kiss he had actually wanted. He had been sixteen, all long limbs and sharp angles despite his last growth spurt not having hit quite yet. There had been other kisses before, most recently the girl he had danced with last year at junior prom. She had been...pretty enough, in a girl-next-door sort of way, and the kiss, while awkward and stilted, wasn't terrible. But she was all wrong, and most not significantly, she wasn't Taylor Powell.

They had been behind the bleachers of the school football field, the one part of the school that seemed to get any consistent funding, with a six pack of some terrible warm alcohol that Taylor had nicked from his dad that morning. Even now, Eliot could remember the foamy piss-like taste, and credited this day with instilling his disdain for beer. He had been grateful for every fucking drop. The fact that two short years ago, when he was fourteen and stupid and desperate to not be abused for a little while, after Eliot had rallied with his peers in beating the ever loving _shit_ out of Taylor while spitting every word he hated about himself at the boy, Taylor had still approached him the next day and said "It's cool, I get it" was nothing short of a goddamn miracle. Any shakiness between them had been entirely on his own part, a result of his own need to create distance while waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Taylor to realize that he deserved a better friend, to resent him when he realized that Eliot really was the best he could do, the price one paid for being born brown in this bigoted little hell hole, but that day didn't come. Eliot grew complacent; he felt something vaguely resembling actual happiness around Taylor, and he never even entertained the idea of denying an invitation to get drunk together after school.

They had talked, and they had laughed, and they had bitched about how much better their lives were going to be once they left this place. At this point in his life, Eliot had been too full of self loathing, to sure of the fact that he was destined to a life of pretending to be someone he wasn't, married to whichever girl would settle that low, whoever was too blind to notice his clear lack of sexual attraction while he ignored their children and dreamed of what could have been, to think their dreams where anything but that. But under that open sky, brilliant and blue and full of possibility, Eliot almost believed their lives could mean something. And Taylor had smiled so brilliantly, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he laughed about becoming a writer, as he declared that all of his stories would have happy endings critics be damned. His normally brown eyes glimmered amber and hazel in the afternoon sun, and the wind fluttered his dark hair back in the most tempting way. Eliot and his virgin liver had been weak after downing the truly disgusting concoction that was Pabst Blue Ribbon down as fast as possible, and when Taylor had turned to him and asked "worst case scenario, let's say acting doesn't work out. What do you want, Eliot?", he had blinked, slowly, and dumbly replied "you", before leaning in and closing the distance between their lips.

The kiss lasted maybe a few seconds. Eliot had come in too fast, and their teeth had clacked together horribly, before he pulled back enough to try and do things properly. All in all, it had been the most chaste kiss of his life, the younger version of himself wouldn't have known what to do with his tongue even if the thought crossed his mind. But it didn't, all he could focus on was sharp cheekbones and thick eyelashes, and the awful taste of cheap beer that he suddenly couldn't get enough of.

He knew he’d fucked up the moment he pulled away. Some foolish part of him had imagined Taylor would lean against him, just as fevered and willing to see where this went, but Taylor didn't move. He didn't look angry, he didn't look much of anything. Not until after Eliot felt his face shift through an ouroboros of humiliation-desperation-sadness-humiliation-. Taylor looked at him with something that Eliot would later recognize as concern, but at the time only read as rejection. After a moment, he'd tried saying something, but only got as far as "Hey, you don't-" before Eliot had cut him off. He'd laughed, demanding to know _what_ he didn't have to do in a voice that made it clear he didn't want an answer, he'd said the kiss was just a joke, that it didn't mean anything, he'd insisted, vehemently, that he wasn't- that he couldn't be-. He threw his empty can the pathetically short distance he could manage. He'd walked home after. He'd told Taylor to fuck off and forget it ever happened before.

So yeah, needless to say, he had freaked the fuck out. He'd been shaking so hard on the way home it was a miracle he didn't collapse. Though, maybe he had. He'd never been able to remember much of the walk back. Just the overwhelming need to hide in the confines of the barn, and beg mercy from a God he'd already long since decided was a raging jackass. Hence, it wasn’t much of a surprise when his dad did come looking for him.

His first mistake had been not passing through the house before hiding out in the barn, robbing Earl of his daily opportunity to berate Eliot for his assumed crimes. Be it wasting his time with theater or anything that wasn't the farm, or not praying clearly enough the night before, or putting any time at all into his homework because it's 'not like school matters, you'll never make anything of yourself outside of here. boy'. Meanwhile, he'd turn around and celebrate Noah getting into college and his 'incredible football career', like he was one of the Fighting Irish and not a fucking Wildcat. His second mistake had been thinking he could get away with hiding for much longer than the ten minutes or so he had been home. Of course his father would come looking for him, and the young man before Eliot had been a fool for thinking otherwise

Some sensations from the memory were too palpable. Eliot could still taste the cheap whisky in the air as his father turned the corner, could still feel his heart pounding like a jackrabbit as though he were the boy tucked between the tractor and the old rusted rakes, and not merely watching him. He did find himself with the rare opportunity to study his father's face, however. Eliot didn't know what he hoped to see there, but whatever it was wasn't present. All he saw was a drunken haze he had seen in his own mirror as often as he had seen it in this shitty little farmhouse, transform into shame, and again into anger. The words that followed were familiar ones. A litany of cliches that every small-minded man woman and child in this fucking town seemed so desperate to cling onto; ' _Man up, only girls and faggots cry, and I ain't raising a fucking queer, get out here boy, 'fore I make you sorry_ -' and he _couldn't stop crying_. It was one thing to think back on his father, to remember how much he hated and feared him. It was so much worse to watch a version of himself, so young and so naive, who knew that he would never be loved by this man but still had the audacity to hope that maybe, just once, he would ask why he was upset, even if only to mock him for whatever answer he gave. He was certain he could hear Margo muttering under her breath, wishing she could bring her desire to go back in time and eviscerate the man before her to life, but he couldn't pull his eyes away to confirm. Quentin gripped his hand tighter, and at least he could be grateful for one memory today.

Then his dad hit him.

It wasn't the worst hit he'd ever gotten from the man, it barely even broke top twenty, though it did make Charlton gasp. Though that was probably more a reaction to the sound than anything else, these things did always sound so much worse than they actually felt. Or maybe he had just grown numb. It was hard to say. Before Eliot could turn, tell Charlton to get over himself, _'_ it's not like you had to live it', they were interrupted by the lovely voice of a man who had spent years destroying his throat with chewing tobacco and yelling, continuing his beratement of his youngest son. This was the part where his father engaged in his idea of 'conflict deescalation', which in this case was yelling that he'd better ' _get the fuck out of my face, and don't you dare come back in till you're ready to act like a man_ ' followed by an order to do something sufficiently exhausting and masculine, usually chopping wood. As far as typical punishments went, it was an effective one. Even with the experience of growing up on a farm, his upper body was shit; hence Darrel usually took care of it, But as a punishment it guaranteed he would be out back for at least another six hours, then his dad would get to yell at him all over again for taking so long. He spat, not at the boy he used to be directly, but definitely in spirit, before turning back to the house, likely in search of another beer.

"So, is this fucking door gonna show up or can I go back to thinking about all the ways I'd like to fuck him up for you?" Margo spoke, breaking the spell of silence that had settled over the group. Eliot didn't need to look to her to know she was wearing the face of the High King, the Destroyer. That was a persona she mastered long before Fillory, long before Brakebills even.

"It's not over yet, Bambi." He exhaled.

His younger self had intended to hide in that spot as long as possible, wait till his father was well and truly gone and lick his wounds before slinking away. He was trembling, he was the perfect embodiment of every part of himself he had tried to destroy upon coming to New York. He froze when his father's footsteps stopped, twelve steps short of the back porch. Eliot could almost remember the feeling of his heart pounding in contrast with his body's instinct to still itself. He could clearly remember the irrational fear that his father had magically discovered he'd kissed a boy, and was coming back to make that slap look like an affectionate nudge. The boy in ill-fitting flannel had his eyes screwed shut, as though he could ever get out of this place so easily. His current self turned to the place where his father had stopped. He was heaving, leaning forward and clutching his chest, and Eliot wasn't sure whether to be grateful or disappointed that he hadn't watched this for himself the first time. The young Eliot finally opened his eyes at Ear's wheezing gasps, the barely managed repetition of "boy, _boy_ -". He was exhausted, and scared, and possibly still a little drunk and just wanted everything to be _over_ already. He opened his eyes just in time to watch his dad collapse.

Nowadays, he knew that the heart attack was entirely coincidental. His father lived on a steady Midwestern diet of mayonnaise based 'salads' and Budweiser. Some sort of cardiac event was inevitable; it was honestly more of a surprise that one had taken this long to occur. But the Eliot before him, the scrawny boy who was almost as afraid of himself as he was everything around him, he had been entirely certain that he had just killed his father like he had killed Logan Kinnear before. The memory stepped out on shaking legs. The cold panic that gripped his veins was another sensation Eliot could remember all too well, but he barked out a hysterical chuckle nonetheless.

"You know what the worst part of this was?" Eliot asked no one in particular, though he knew Charlton would perk up at the question, as his younger self considered stepping towards his father's fallen form. He could hear the former host shuffling behind him, unwilling to speak up but clearly listening. Eliot watched as his past self took a tentative step forward, spoke a gentle, shaky call of _'dad?',_ before retreating. Before looking around in panic. He didn't want to continue, but, fuck it.

"The worst part, is that as scared as I was, as much as I was convinced my body count had just doubled, I was _relieved_. I was genuinely relieved, because Earl Wilson would die, and no one would ever have to know that I killed him."

His teen self was beginning to truly panic, relief twisting into nausea. For years, Eliot hadn't known how to reconcile the thoughts he had that day. The hope that his life was about to get slightly less shitty, the guilt that he was a murderer, a monster, and the small beating piece of hope buried deep within his gut, that somehow his dad would get up and turn around someday, and realize that he _mattered_ for who he was, and they would have some sort of fantastic reconciliation like something out of a John Hughes film. Even back then he knew that fantasy was bullshit. That wasn't how life worked, and it certainly would never be _his_ life.

Eliot remembered tearing himself apart over this day for years, using the frustrations and confusion from it (along with ample cocaine), to fuel some truly impressive last minute essays for his art history lectures. Truly, his dedication to repressed self-loathing had been an art form in and of itself. 

In his memory, Darrel stepped outside. Whatever question he had vanished the moment he saw their father face first in the dirt, and he sprung into action. He turned him over, ran inside to call 9-1-1, never saw his younger brother hiding just out of sight, and ensured that Earl would live to torment him another day. Still, he couldn't resent his brother too much for it. Of the three of them, he always had been the most level-headed in a crisis. In another year, when Eliot would finally work up the nerve to hit his father back, and his father would respond by beating him half to death, it was Darrel coming home early from his girlfriend's place that would save his life. Or, well, would get him patched up as much as possible from the bathroom on the second floor, followed by a ride to the nearest greyhound station and an envelope of cash he'd apparently been holding onto to get a ring. Eliot had tracked him down on Facebook, halfway through his undergrad program. He was in nursing school, and he looked happy. He never quite worked up the nerve to reach out any further than that.

Then Brakebills had happened. Then he realized that he wasn't alone in the vast sea of bullshit that was life, and shitty childhoods were just apparently the price one paid for greatness. Probably bullshit, but then again, most of the Henry Fogg school of philosophy was. Still, shitty childhoods were the price of admission to Brakebills, and he wasn't alone. The last key to his transformation finally started to turn.

When he was young, he didn't know how the fuck to feel, whether it was worse to have possibly killed his father or to resent him for living through the attack. Now he was faced with an entirely new conundrum. Eliot could still recall the phantom stinging across his face, the faint taste of blood inside his mouth, but the longer he watched the more disconnected he felt. The boy in the barn wore his face and knew each and every one of his secrets, from the nicknames he had given the goats the one ill-fated summer they had kept goats, to the truth of what happened to his mother's favorite skirt, but the boy in the barn _didn't feel like him anymore_ . How could he, when Eliot hardly recognized who he had been even a year ago? Would he ever not be haunted by his family? Probably not.The memory sucked, and it highlighted everything he hated about who he was and where he had come from beautifully, but- _fuck_ , did Earl really deserve the title of holding onto his most repressed memory?

Eliot turned back towards the back porch. The local EMTs were just beginning to pour out from the kitchen and he could see the back of his mother's head as she broke her self-imposed 'no smoking in the house' rule for the first time in months. He never knew for sure if she had wrestled with the same dreaded hope that Earl would die that afternoon, but the following week she had dove head first into the church. That was answer enough for him. The med team rolled his father onto his back. It was the smallest he'd ever seen the man, though he still managed to yell at the man attempting to take his vitals that he was fine. It was there, standing between the would-be corpse of his father and the shaking form of a boy he no longer knew that he realized, he wasn't that scared kid anymore. He was still scared, definitely, but for entirely different reasons. He'd already survived this . Only barely, but he had survived nonetheless. His pain, his fear, his _goddamn shame_ \- "I... I don't owe you any of it." he whispered.

Also, given that his rogues gallery had gotten a lot more colorful in the last few years, it sort of made sense that his family would start to feel more distant in the grand scheme of 'threats worth worrying about.'

A screech from the now-barren fields tore everyone back to attention. Quentin pressed even harder against his side. Were he real, Eliot would just _have_ to tug at his hair, tell him _'down boy_ ', watch him flush and spin about and hope no one else had heard. He always was such a good little guard dog, whether he realized it or not.

"We need to get out of here, _now_." He urged.

"Way ahead of you," Margo called from- from inside the barn, when had she walked away? "So get your heads out of each other's asses and move it!"

She was already halfway up the ladder to the empty hay loft. Always the most efficient of their team, even when she wasn't real. He pushed Q up the ladder after her, smirking at his blush as Margo told him he'd _'better enjoy the view'._ And if he intended to do the same, who would ever know?

(Charlton would, but, fuck it Charlton possibly wasn't real either.)

Margo pulled aside the trapdoor overhead, revealing the ceiling to the cottage just ahead. Did the cottage even have a basement for them to be coming out of? He would need to investigate further once he got out of there.

They stepped back into the cottage without much fanfare. Though, every memory where they didn't face the masked creatures directly was a victory. He tugged Margo towards him by her sleeve, placing a kiss on her cheek. It was soft, paired with a whispered _'thank you, Bambi'_. He pulled Quentin by the neck of his stupidly soft, oversized hoodie and kissed him on his lips. That kiss was only slightly less soft. He looked at Charlton, and blew straight past him. At least the man had the good sense to look slightly put off at being disregarded.

The words on the chalkboard looked so innocuous compared to what he had witnessed- _'Dad's heart attack.'_ The entirety of the experience: the heartbreak, anger, fear of possible patricide, could somehow fit in three little words. And now, those three words almost felt like enough. He crossed the memory from the list and stepped back. After a moment of pondering, he raised the chalk again and continued; Caught stealing cash from dad, babysitting mishap, and anything else to do with his family went next. Somehow, he knew his door wouldn't be there.

“Alright,” Eliot called out to the room, but more so to himself. “Where do we go from here?”

  
  


\--x--

**Author's Note:**

> Language warnings: 
> 
> This story contains two uses of the word "f****t". The first occurs in the third paragraph, at the end of the sentence "True, his catalog of high school memories was objectively terrible-". 
> 
> The second occurs shortly after Eliot's father makes an appearance in memory form. This is part of a verbal tirade following "The words that followed were familiar ones. A litany of cliches that every small-minded man woman and child in this fucking town seemed so desperate to cling onto;-". This verbal tirade also contains the use of the term "queer" intended as a slur.
> 
> Eliot's father warnings:
> 
> This work contains a scene in which Eliot's father hits a younger version of himself. The emphasis during this scene is placed more on the older Eliot's reaction to watching it play out, than on the violence itself, but the scene occurs nonetheless. This happens very shortly after the homophobic verbal tirade.
> 
> This work also contains reference to an additional act of violence committed by Eliot's father against him. It is a brief mention, half a sentence maybe, and occurs in the paragraph starting with "In his memory, Darrel stepped outside. Whatever question he had vanished the moment he saw their father face first in the dirt, and he sprung into action-"
> 
> You can follow me for more story updates, or talk Magicians with me at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theauditty <3


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